Question

Five prospective bike buyers were quizzed on the relative importance of five different features considered when buying a bike. The features considered are reliability(R), after sales services (AS), fuel efficiency (FE), value for money (VFM) and resale value (RV).
In the figure given below, the name(s) (given in brackets) in any of the cells give(s) the buyer(s) who allotted the respective rank (i.e., the columns) to the respective factor (i.e., the row). For example both B and D allotted rank of 2 to the factor VFM while A was the only buyer who allotted a rank of 4 to the factor FE.
$\begin{array}{cccccc}RV& (C,D)& \left(A\right)& & (B,E)& \\ VFM& \left(A\right)& (B,D)& \left(E\right)& & \left(C\right)\\ FE& (B,E)& & (C,D)& \left(A\right)& \\ AS& & \left(A\right)& & (B,C,E)& \left(D\right)\\ R& & (C,E)& \left(B\right)& \left(D\right)& \left(A\right)\\ & 1& 2& 3& 4& 5\end{array}$
Rank
Which of the following pair of buyers are most dissimilar in their preferences?

• A. D and E
• B. A and B
• C. C and E
• D. A and C

Answer 1

The correct option is D A and C

The dissimilarity of choices for two people would be measured by sum of the absolute value of difference in rankings given by the two people to each of the five parameters.
E.g. Dissimilarity for A and C would be |3-1|+|1-5|+|4-3|+|2-4|+|5-2|=12.
If we find the dissimilarity values for all pairs of people, the table would be as follows.
$\begin{array}{ccccc}& E& D& C& B\\ A& 12& 8& 12& 10\\ B& 2& 8& 10& \\ C& 8& 6& & \\ D& 10& & & \end{array}$